my desk. >> you can see much more of the late night comedians on our website, up next is rachel maddow and richard engel with the battle for richmond. let's play "hardball." good morning, i'm chris matthews in washington. leading off tonight, give them hell, barry.

last night democrats heard the man they elected in 2008, a barack obama forceful, hopeful, challenging inspiring. the president promised to take his case to quote, every corner of this country and he began making good on that promise by traveling today to eric cantor's district to sell his plan. the president may have finally grabbed the initiative. plus, ten years later we're still learning more about what went on and didn't happen behind the scenes on 9/11. tonight two guests are with president bush and with vice president cheney. i said president not by accident with america under attack. also, walk around the streets of new york today and it will be clear that officials are taking no chances in light of word that not much smaller scale al qaeda attack may be many the planning stages. we're going to get the latest tonight on "hardball." and shirts versus skins. mitt romney isn't the only republican looking over his shoulder. here comes karl rove and the

bush political machine. let me finish with my big hope for america. we start with president obama on the road selling his plan. gentlemen, signs of the president. i said for months the president should take his street to the fight. actually projects in their own republican districts daring them to vote no for projects that help and in fact are needed in their own hometowns. according to a group, my new favorite group in this country there's more than 65,000 structurally deficient bridges in this country. those are the bridges we travel over all the time and they're in need of immediate repair, maintenance or outright replacement. we can put americans to work fixing them right now. right now, mr. cantor, listen up and those who vote for him on occasion, 94 deficiently

structured bridges in virginia if your district where president obama traveled to speak about his prns. throughout this site we're going to be running the low kags of those bridges to give you a sense of all the opportunities in virginia's district that is represented by eric cantor, may not be for long. you can follow me on twitter for more on the topic. i think we've got to take the issue of jobs and infrastructure to the people. we've got to start talking about real problems, real dangers when those school buses go over those bridges and they start to rattle think of eric cantor. let me talk to you, do you think this is an important idea to talk in real terms about jobs instead of this abstract jobs program? >> i do what can be more concrete than concrete. >> and steel. >> gene, you didn't just think of that, did you? >> you do what you can.

this initiative, this infrastructure initiative has not only the support of liberals who want to stimulate the economy, the chamber of commerce is in favor -- >> why because every morning in america at 10:30 that's delivery time. that's when all the bridges are covered by trucks. here are signs of the two way barack obama. we saw it today in richmond. the president got elected a couple years past. here he is taking his jobs plan -- it's the enemy camp in this issue. here he is urging the gop to pass the bill. >> the time for action is now. the time to create jobs is now. pass this bill. the next election is 14 months away. we cannot -- we cannot wait. the american people do not have the luxury of waiting another 14 months for some action. some of you are living paycheck to paycheck, week to week,

day-by-day. now is not the time for people in washington to be worrying about their jobs. it's time for them to be worrying about your jobs. now it's time to put americans back to work. now's the time to act. >> you know he's campaigning again. he's not sitting around waiting to campaign against rick perry. looks like he's campaigning. what's the scorecard here? is it rousing up the troops? a favorite crowd, they like him, but is it to win this bill or to have something to blame against republicans. tell me how to score this. >> i think right now he's straddling those two missions. he put his team on the field and he's waiting to see how the republicans come out and he's going to call. he has a few options. he can go right at them campaign mode. >> to try to win the bill. >> not to win the bill, to win the next election. or put pressure on them and work

with them to get something passed. they won't let him get everything passed. >> gene, this economy needs a kick in the -- right now. doesn't he need to get something passed for real purpose now? >> he does. the environment has changed. there's more of a realization. certainly among conservative economists. and i think ordinary americans and ultimately maybe even among some republican congressmen in the house that we're about to slip into recession again. that could be disastrous. >> i get the feeling that he is worried. a lot of people are worried. look at the bottom of that screen. we're putting these pictures out. these are the names of bridges in eric cantor's district richmond area that are structurally deficient right now. you decide what that means. that bridge that fell in minnesota was described as structurally deficient before it collapsed. >> don't forget with republicans in congress they came out of the debt ceiling fight lower than

the president. they did not do well. >> they're vulnerable. >> they are vulnerable. the president was very effective this morning when he went out there and said here's our choice. you can fix 35,000 schools for our kids and make them work or we can have tax loopholes for oil companies. we can't do both. >> it's better to get action than blame assignment, right? >> no -- >> isn't it better to get the bridges fixed -- >> he needs to have some economic improvement to do well next year. he has to deal with recalcitrant republicans. >> here he is going after republicans including eric cantor giving them a little credit for not outright refusing his proposal. he is really leaning forward here to use a local phrase. >> to their credit i was glad to hear some republicans including

your congressman say they've got -- they see room for us to work together. they said that they're open to some of the proposals to create american jobs. but, we've got to give them a little help to do the right thing. so i'm asking all of you to lift up your voices. not just here in richmond. anybody watching, listening, following online. >> hes into that church voice of his. what does that tell you? does that church tell you i'm getting ready to lose one or win one? >> when you're in the church you want to win. you want to win those souls. >> it's not about suffering. >> no. it's let's win something. the question is eric cantor was sort of equivocal in his initial reaction. is that just playing rope-a-dope to -- >> i know what you mean. >> what i was hearing from the

white house before the speech is they're going to press for this bill. they're going to press for the whole enchilada. >> let's remind everybody that wasn't watching the president last night. this bill has a couple of big ingredients. something is so easy for republicans. all you have to do is reduce the cost of hiring labor by cutting the payroll tax for the employer. and there's some insent i haves for hiring people. that's the easiest thing to buy. >> the tax cut stuff should be. >> the other stuff is fixing bridges and schools. will they choke on that one? >> they will. >> it's spending they can nick this thing to death with 1,000 different cuts. and they can start attaching poison pills to it as well. >> why wouldn't they want to cut taxes on workers? >> i think they'd rather cut taxes from millionaires and billionaires. they haven't done that. they have had a chance to do

this in the last two years. >> you're on laughing gas now. think always say the small businessman is the image of the party. >> last year the republicans held up a small business bill for over mine months. why? it had a made by obama sticker attached to it. you have 40, 80, 100 tea party members of the house who may not go along with anything that even a reasonable eric cantor wants to say. >> is it raet that bad on the republican side now? they just want to screw the guy? >> it has been that guy. it's been worse. will it be this bad that time? >> how does he apply enough heat locally to break boehner to give him a vote or bring to serious close to passage what he wants? >> it's a good start to go to cantor's district thing, boehner's district thing. >> take it. >> you know what we're going to

do for our small educational role here. we're going to keep doing what we're going on the screen. we continue to show the bridges in his district. 90 something bridges that need repair. they exist. we're going to do the same thing on tuesday. it's also part -- here's congressman cantor's own reaex to the president's jobs speech last night. he was with luke russert of nbc. >> i think there's a lot in the speech that we can work on together. areas like small business tax relief, suggestions that we ought to streamline the process of infrastructure spending. suggestions we ought to reform the unemployments benefit program in this country. what i did take exception to was the all or nothing approach that the president took. he continues to say pass this package. there's nothing controversial in this package. anybody that doesn't embrace this he's going to take it to all corners of this country. obviously he's going to my district tomorrow and i reject

that approach because i think there's a lot of areas that we have in common in his proposal. but there's certainly some differences. >> that's kind of a [ bleep ] ant argument. nobody says that barack obama has demanded all or nothing. >> whereas house republicans have repeatedly demand all or nothing. >> he's attacking himself. >> when you see eric cantor talking reasonably, it shows he's scared. >> did you notice the sweat on the lip. >> i don't think he has to worry about in his district. you talked about targeting cantor and boner, there are 25, 30 republican house members whose seats may be at play next year. those are the people. the white house there should be a political director in the white house look at those describings that's where they should match up. >> we have bridges for them. we will apply those bridges as

those days go on. some people are afraid to do this show. every time they show up we'll show their bridges. eugene robinson, david korn. coming up ten years after the 9/11 attacks, that is this weekend, we're still learning what did and didn't happen behind the scenes. we're going behind the scenes in the cheney white house, bush white house. we're going to talk to two guests that were there with president bush and vice president cheney when we were under attack. you're watching "hardball" only releases armies of snowmen masseuse, o cuddle up with your soreness and give out polar bear hugs. technology. [ male announcer ] new bengay cold therapy. the same technology used by physical therapists. go to bengay.com for a 5-dollar coupon.

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on september 11th, this building was transformed -- transformed into a battle field. ten years later, we are a stronger nation. and at the core of that strength is that generation of americans who have stepped forward to serve in uniform. >> what a good man that is, that's secretary of defense leon panetta. he was speaking at the pentagon right at the ten year anniversary of the attacks on the pentagon almost ten years ago. this morning wall street held a moment of silence to commemorate the victims of 9/11 attacks up there. joining us right now are two people who had a front row seat at the moment in history. retired lieutenant colonel robert j. darling was in the white house bunker that morning

with vice president dick cheney. he wrote about his experience in a book "24 hours inside the president's bunker." and richard kyle was traveling with president bush that morning. he's now a consultant with purple strategies. let me go with dick first. i want to get to the cheney part. i'm fascinated. you were with president bush when he was teaching at that school. tell me what you thought was the interesting thing that most people don't know about that morning 9/11. >> he had been told by the head of the white house situation room who was on that trip only that a plane had hit the world trade center. nobody knew more than that. many of us reporters were on the phone, we didn't have any video. but we were on the phone with our respective desks. i happened to be talking to one of my editors who was narrating. >> he only knew it was a small plane.

he didn't know that it was part of anything. >> he didn't know size or scope. what i was hearing on my phone from my editor was a narration of the second plane hitting. he told me later when he was looking across the room at us it was like watching a silent horror movie. he could tell that looking at our faces that something terrible was going on. it was moments when helened over in that iconic image. >> two planes. >> absolutely. he had again, he was frozen in the moment. he was doing an event. and was surrounded by all these young children. the tension in the room was growing by the second. >> let's go to colonel darling right now. thank you for joining us. you were on duty in the white house. you were in the bunker. tell us about how the vice president assumed the authority basically of the chief executive absent the president, absent the secretary of defense who was busy putting out fires at the

pentagon at that time. >> that's right. it's great to be with you. the minute we walked in there about 9 v 9 clj 50. i went down to the president emergency op centers. they told me to answer the phones. my first phone call was that we have another hijacked plane 16 miles south of pittsburgh inbound washington, d.c. i turned to my right and there was the vice president and i passed the information immediately off to him. >> let's listen to that transmission. it's a piece of that audio that was made public just this week. one to have 114 recordings from that day just released. it's a conversation between mill their commanders on the ground and fighter pilots who were up in the air just after 10:30. they're discussing an order given by vice president dick cheney to shoot down civilian planes if needed. let's listen. >> you need to read this. region commander has declared that we can shoot down tracks if

they do not respond to our directions. >> i'll pass that to weapons. >> the region demander has declared that we can shoot down aircraft that do not respond to our direction. if you're trying to divert somebody. >> doj is saying no. >> you have a conflict on that direction? >> right now, no. >> you read that from the vice president, right? >> vice president has cleared us to intercept traffic and shoot them down if they do not respond. >> we're all familiar with the constitution which gives the president executive authority as commander in chief and he designates that through the secretary of defense. that chain in command was in effect. looks like there was a little conflict in that air conversation in that transmission about the line of authority there. is that how you read it what was going in terms of the right of the vice president under the constitution to act in that regard? >> sure. the minute i gave the vice

president information and he ordered right over to the national military command center a general officer was in the bunker at the pentagon. he said i want two 23 h 156s. let me know when they're airborne. this was no discussion. he seemed to have full control. he was in full combat mode. >> how does that work? we all know the constitution. the vice president has no executive authority. how did he get that? was it designated to him by the president or what? or did he assumed the emergency situation he would take his risks and do what he thought he had to do? >> it's a great question. he says according to his own testimony elsewhere that he hand the president had multiple conversations that morning. at some point he felt he had the authority to take that kind of action from the bunker complex there was no discussion with the president. that minute i gave him that information he immediately responded back to the pentagon asking for those fighters.

if he had the authority he had it before we entered the bunker complex. >> thank you, gentlemen. good reports by both of you. up next, caught on tape, house speaker john boehner. this is light hearted. didn't have jobs on the brain in minutes before the speech. we'll tell you what they were talking about. it wasn't the hot somebody issue of the 9.1 unemployment rate. 8gú

back to "hardball." in the side show, first up, making up for lost time. as vice president joe biden joined speaker boehner in anticipation of the president's speech last night, it wasn't all business they had to catch up onle let's listen. >> we've got a heck of a lot of work. >> in august.

i was at a dismal -- golf club in sand hills, nebraska. it's one of the hardest golf courses you'll ever see. seven birdies, five bogies. i shot two under. >> you're kidding me. >> the next day i go to sand hills, i shoot 86. one day i play great, the next day i play awful. this is the round of the decade. >> a couple of scratch golfers. i've never seen these men in such an animated conversation. golf seems to be their common ground. that's "hardball" for now. coming up next "your businesses" with j.j. ramberg. [ female announcer ] so you think your kids are getting enough vegetables? maybe not. v8 v-fusion juice gives them a full serving of vegetables plus a full serving of fruit. but it just tastes like fruit.

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